They really should add combat animations where a shield deflects a hit or an armor absorbs all the damage on a "miss". Right now even heavily armored tanks are just dodging everything.
It has been mentioned before, even by Swen himself, that players don't like the feeling when they miss. And that you miss "too much". Well here's the answer, partly at least. Hitting armor or shield doesn't feel like a complete miss. It doesn't feel like YOU failed. Even though you technically don't deal damage, your attack at least still gets rewarded by a big fat thunk when your weapon hits their shield or armor and there's an impact, maybe a stagger. It feels more like the defender succeeded or was just tanky or lucky.
AC is a combination of everything: dodging, shield blocks, magical protection and in the case of heavy armor especially, about the armor soaking all the damage from a hit. A dodge animation alone doesn't begin to accurately reflect what's happening in combat.
And it would just look and sound a lot cooler. Tanks would feel like tanks and rogues would feel fast and evasive and both would be visually represented as such. The turn based system makes anything possible since you don't have interruptions or overlapping animations.
Btw, do the devs ever read these forums? I don't remember seeing any official responses to anything.
